A known cold weather garment system which has been proven effective over the last decade and a half is commonly known as a Phillips system. An improvement over the Phillips system is described in the parent application Ser. No. 879,053, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference herein. This invention relates to yet another improvement over the Phillips system.
The known drawbacks of the Phillips system include poor wind resistance and water repellency; difficulties in mass production because of the problems associated with cutting, handling, and sewing one inch thick open cell foam into a finished garment; a bulky construction which is uncomfortable to some users; and an appearance that oftentimes appears "bloated". In co-pending application Ser. No. 885,444 filed July 14, 1986, the disclosure of which is also incorporated herein, the poor wind resistance of the Phillips system is overcome by utilizing a high density woven fabric as the outer shell fabric. While such a construction solves the poor wind resistance problem associated with the prior art Phillips system, it does not address the other drawbacks discussed above, and outer fabrics which satisfy the requirement for solving the poor wind resistance problems oftentimes are expensive and easily torn.
According to the present invention a cold weather garment is provided which overcomes the drawbacks associated with the prior art Phillips system while still retaining its unique advantageous features of excellent cold weather insulation and excellent transmission of moisture produced by perspiration. The advantageous results achieved according to the present invention are achieved by providing a particular type of foam as part of the basic cold weather garment construction, the foam according to the invention being substituted for the conventional polyurethane foam in the Phillips prior art system. By making this simple--in hindsight--substitution, the invention achieves a number of unexpected advantageous results. These advantageous results include good wind resistance; the ability to achieve good wind resistance even with a lower cost shell fabric than is provided in the parent application; good water repellency; reduced bulkiness and therefore increased wearer comfort and appearance; and greatly improved ease of construction.
According to the present invention, the cold weather garment includes an interior lining fabric and an outer fabric with a layer of open cell foam between them, just like in the Phillips prior art system. The difference is the utilization of a foam layer which is a "skin foam" or "skinned foam". The partially open cell skin foam has a thickness of at least about 1/4 inch, and preferably between 1/4 and 3/4 of an inch. At least one major face of the foam layer is flat, and has a skin, a flat skinned face being in contact with the outer fabric, and enhancing the ease of construction and wind resistance of the garment. The foam layer may be composed of a single piece of foam, and the second major face of the single piece of foam also may be flat and skinned, or it may be convoluted, or it may flat and not skinned, depending upon the particular other parameters selected. Where it is convoluted, the convoluted face will have a construction such as described in the parent application.
As an alternative construction, instead of a single thickness piece of foam being provided as the foam layer, a plurality of smaller thickness pieces of foam may be provided as the foam layer; for example instead of one 3/4 inch thick piece of polyurethane foam, two 3/8 inch thick pieces may be provided. Dual construction, with both pieces having a skinned face, enhances the wind resistance of the garment.
The final garment according to the invention must have a moisture vapor transmission value rate of at least 500 grams per square meter per 24 hours. The foam layer should have an air permeability of less than about 10 cfm/square feet at a pressure of 0.5 inches of water. The foam layer also should have a spray resistance of less than 100 percent wet pickup at a 90 degree angle of impact and less than 150 degrees wet pickup at a 45 degree angle. Further, the skinned foam face (or all skinned faces where there are more than one) should have a surface friction of less than about two pounds using a one pound test load.
While the outer fabric can be formed of VERSATECH, as described in the parent application, according to the present invention a less expensive outer fabric may be utilized. For example the outer shell may comprise a tightly knit synthetic yarn fabric having an air permeability value of less than about 10 cubic feet per minute per square foot at a pressure of 0.5 inches of water, and it may be treated with a water repellent coating. More particularly, the outer shell fabric may comprise approximately 210 denier continuous filament nylon warp knit and 3 ply approximately 70 denier air textured nylon filling yarn woven in a plain weave having about 79 ends and about 61 picks per inch.
It is the primary object of the present invention to provide an improved cold weather garment. This and other objects of the invention will become clear from an inspection of the detailed description of the invention, and from the appended claims.